DeepSeek Nearing Completion of 100 Billion Yuan Funding Round at 500 Billion Yuan Valuation

▲ DeepSeek

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) developer DeepSeek is expected to secure close to 100 billion yuan (approx. 20 trillion won) in its ongoing funding round, Bloomberg reported on the 6th local time.

Sources said that while DeepSeek initially aimed to raise 50 billion yuan, investment interest surpassed expectations following the launch of its latest AI model, according to the report.

China's CATL, the world's largest battery manufacturer, and Tencent Holdings, the operator of WeChat, are reportedly committing the largest amounts.

Both companies are existing investors in DeepSeek.

The funding round is expected to wrap up soon, the sources said.

Bloomberg projected that DeepSeek's valuation in this funding round will reach at least 500 billion yuan (approx. 100 trillion won).

Bloomberg assessed that this funding round sets the stage for DeepSeek to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) next year.

DeepSeek plans to deploy more than 160,000 Huawei Technologies Ascend AI chips at a data center currently under construction in Inner Mongolia, China, to power its models.

This data center will be the largest among Huawei's AI chip clusters.

Meanwhile, rival Moonshot is also targeting an IPO early next year after completing fundraising at a valuation of 50 billion dollars.

(Photo: Getty Images)

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